National news

Conference realignment decades in the making

Megaconferences mean money and exposure, but history is odd man out

By

SamMamudi

Reuters

Clashes between the in-state rivals University of Texas and Texas A&M University may be a thing of the past after conferences realign.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The push to expand traditional college sports conferences means big changes, with conferences bringing in more teams and more money — but sacrificing historical rivalries in the process.

The threat to traditions such as the annual Texas–Texas A&M game is part of a process that’s been decades in the making. As conference memberships shift, new television networks launch, and the future of collegiate athletics goes up for grabs, it’s easy to forget the landmark decision that led to today’s upheavals.

The floodgates opened in 1984, when the Supreme Court sided with colleges in ruling that the National Collegiate Athletic Association couldn’t control the sport’s TV deals. That gave a green light to schools and sports conferences to make their own deals, and it’s not hard to see a direct line to today’s multibillion-dollar deals that have spurred the scramble to find lucrative partners.

“When the Supreme Court got the NCAA out of the TV business, it opened the way for what we’re seeing today,” said Neal Pilson, a sports TV consultant and former president of CBS Sports
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In recent weeks, Texas A&M said it would leave the Big 12, Texas and Oklahoma gave their presidents the power to move their schools out of the conference, and Pittsburgh and Syracuse chose to leave the Big East to join the Atlantic Coast Conference. Unconfirmed media reports indicated Big East and Big 12 officials are discussing a possible merger.

The teams and conferences are scurrying to ensure partnerships that hold the most allure for TV networks and audiences.

“This whole thing is driven by commercial and financial interests,” said Andrew Zimbalist, a professor of economics at Smith College who has written extensively about the business of college sports. “Historically, conferences had a congruence in academic philosophy and levels, and some geographical proximity; but [the rise of TV money] has created different alignment incentives.”

The value and growth of live sports in an ever-more-fractious media world is a well-worn story. College sports, with hundreds of games a year and some of the most passionate fans in the world, are perfectly placed to benefit.

The number of college football games shown on ESPN’s channels and on ABC, both owned by Walt Disney Co.
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has jumped to more than 400 this year from 120 a year in 2001. While part of that growth is due to the creation of the college sports channel ESPNU, the very fact of such a channel testifies to the lure of televised college sports.

As coverage has grown, so have the prices paid for the rights. Several conferences have deals worth more than a billion dollars — the Pac-12’s alone is close to $3 billion — and both the Big Ten and the University of Texas have their own TV networks.

It’s hard to argue that the TV money hasn’t been the spur for conference realignments. From 1967 to 1990, there were just two notable changes: Arizona and Arizona State joined the Pac-8 in 1978, creating the Pac-10, and the Big East was formed in 1979.

But as TV money worked through the system, the frequency of shakeups increased. In 1990 the Southeastern Conference expanded to 12 teams, and Penn State joined the Big Ten; in 1991 the Big East, which had largely been a grouping of urban universities whose chief revenue sport was basketball, formed a football conference. In 1994, four teams from the Southwest Conference merged with the Big Eight to form the Big 12. There have been several rounds of realignment since then.

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